Latin American, Latinx, and Caribbean Studies (LALC)

Serves as a general interdisciplinary introduction to Latin America. Students will possibly have the opportunity to travel to a Latin American country during spring vacation. Includes a Community-Based Learning component. One unit.

GPA units: 1

Common Area: Cross-Cultural Studies

A gateway course for the LALC program, this course provides an introduction to Latin America and Abya Yala through film, with a focus on Afro-descendant and indigenous communities, identities and histories. We will examine the cinematic representations of and by Afro-Latin Americans and explore the cultural legacies and resistance of the African diaspora through Latin American film. In addition, we will critically analyze the representation of indigenous peoples in Latin American cinema, and highlight the contributions of indigenous media to current discussions about indigeneity and decolonization. The course will explore social and political issues affecting historically marginalized peoples in Latin America, as well as how cinematography, as an artistic medium, intersects with questions of representation, identity, memory, and activism. Films and other media will be screened in Spanish, Portuguese and indigenous languages (with English subtitles).

GPA units: 1

Common Area: Cross-Cultural Studies

This course examines Latinx migration and mobility across North, Central, and South America as well as the Caribbean. It explores why Latinx migrants move to new places, what happens to them along the way, and their experiences in new destinations, such as the U.S. We will consider how race, class, age, gender, and nationality, among other things, influence and shape the migration process. We will reflect on how the act of migration transforms migrants, those left behind, and those encountered along the way. We will discuss topics such as borders, citizenship, diaspora, globalization, and immigration enforcement. We will analyze migration as a social, cultural, political, and economic phenomenon and study the mobility of people, ideas, and capital. Above all, we will investigate the role of Latinx migration in producing and transforming our contemporary world.

GPA units: 1

Common Area: Cross-Cultural Studies

Typically Offered: Every Third Year

GPA units: 1

Typically Offered: Fall, Spring

This course examines the history and political economy of Latin America through the lens of commodity production, guided by but not limited to the histories and economies of cacao, sugar and coffee. Using an interdisciplinary approach, we will examine the impact these and other commodities have had on Latin American economies, global food culture and globalization. We will look critically at Latin America's long history of dependence on primary product exports as a strategy for economic growth and well-being. We begin with pre-Columbian Americas, continuing with an analysis of colonial Latin America, followed by post-independence / post-colonial Latin America. We end with a review of contemporary Latin America, touching on such themes as fair trade, direct trade, organic production.

GPA units: 1

Common Area: Social Science